Tear in My Heart
by afreezingnebula
Summary: Summer had always been for eating ice cream on the beach and staying up late to binge-watch Grey's Anatomy reruns. Never in a million years did Peridot ever think that it would include falling in love. (also posted on ao3)


Wow okay hi! So... it's been years since I've been on this account but recently I've been trying to get more into writing(lord knows why) so I decided to finally post something again. This is just something I've been thinking about for a while and I'm hoping I'll be able to finish it by the end of this summer.

It's based on the song Tear in My Heart by Twenty One Pilots (cliche i know) but I feel like this song just really describes them.

I also posted this first on my AO3 account, afreezingnebula, so you can go check it out there too! :)

Enjoy!

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Chapter 1: An-nyŏng-ha-se-yo

Peridot sighed as she glanced at the dusty, black and white clock that hung over the door that led out of her chemistry classroom. Only fourty-five more minutes until she was free. Forty-five minutes until her junior year of high school was finally over. A year that had turned into by far one of the longest, most-stressful years of her life.

Her third year of high school had started out fairly normal. Shebhad started the school year like any other year in the past, keeping to her small number of friends and maintaining her grades were the only things she ever worried about. Life had been pretty good there until the night her parents broke the news that they would be moving away during the Christmas break. That was when Peridot's life began to turn upside down.

Leaving the spacious apartment in New York that she had called home for as long as she could remember to move halfway across the country to a small town called Beach City in the middle of the school year had been quite the culture shock for the girl. Between adjusting to the schools new curriculum while also trying to avoid getting tangled up in the notorious cliques that her new high school housed, Peridot had had her work cut out for her. Luckily, her butt had been saved when, after a seating arrangement mix-up ended up introducing her to the school's most infamous bully in the worst way on her first day of enrollment, a group of girls had heard of what happened and decided to take pity on Beach City Highs newest student. Later that same day, an empty seat at lunch and a few kind words led to a strong friendship between Peridot, Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst, the girls who had swooped in and saved her, and a stocky, curly-haired sophomore named Steven who occasionally sat with them.

Even though her first day had gotten off to a rocky start, she still counted it as one of her favorites.

Peridot ran her fingers through her short, blonde hair and stifled another sigh. She looked up from her chemistry book again and squinted at the clock, its fingers seemingly frozen in place. She groaned as she realized only five minutes had passed. Picking up her phone, she blinked as she saw two unread messages that hadn't been there before. The first having been sent by Steven, wanting to know if she was going to join him and the others at Larry's, a family-run smoothie place that had become the groups hangout spot.

The second text came from Amethyst and only consisted of four words. _Now's your last chance._ Peridot narrowed her eyes as she read the text again, knowing exactly what the long-haired girl was referring to.

She took her eyes off her phone and looked around at the other students who were scattered around the classroom, either gathered around phones or playing hangman on the chalkboard that was located at the front of the room. She continued to scan the room until her eyes finally found their target. A tall, sun-tanned girl, dressed in a loose-fitting tee and worn out white converse, who had her head tucked in a book. The most noticeable thing about her though was her hair. The short, once-brown locks were dyed a shade of blue that stood out against the pale brown wallpaper that covered the chemistry rooms walls. They were dyed the same color as the girls name-sake.

Lapis Lazuli. The girl she had been hopelessly crushing on since her first day at Beach City High.

The same girl who had also ended up being Peridot's next-door neighbor. Her _neighbor._

After an awkward welcome party that the neighborhood had thrown for Peridot and her family that the poor blonde wished she could forget, Peridot had never been able to work up the nerve to start a conversation with the taller girl. Sure, Lapis had often asked Peridot if she ever wanted to hang out over the weekend or get together to study since they had a few of the same classes on their schedules, but those exchanges usually ended with Peridot stumbling through her words as she tried to make an excuse as to why she suddenly extremely busy that weekend or had already promised someone else that she would study with them. It helped that she had gained a reputation for her above-average grades so using that excuse usually got Lapis off her back.

Peridot hated herself for avoiding her crush, especially since the bluenette had done nothing but act nice towards her. But Peridot knew that if she ever did somehow force herself to say yes to one of Lapis' proposals, she'd only end up making a fool of herself and either scare the girl away or give her material that Lapis could use to fuel the already-embarrassing image that Peridot had unintentionally made for herself over the year.

She mentally kicked herself for thinking the blue-haired girl would do something like that, but she had learned the hard way that trusting people at Beach City High was a risk she wasn't willing to take again.

Having forgotten that she had been staring while she was lost in thought, Peridot mentally kicked herself again when Lapis leaned back to stretch in her seat and caught Peridot's eye, sending her a smile. Peridot's eyes widened and she felt her face redden as she realized she'd been caught. The blonde offered a nervous smile in return and quickly hunched back over her phone, pretending to be very involved with what she was doing. Not that she could focus on anything other than the bluenettes eyes that she could still feel boring into the side of her head.

A minute later, Peridot dared to throw a glance in Lapis' direction, releasing a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when she saw that the other girl had returned to her book, though now her blue eyes were narrowed as though she were contemplating something.

Peridot shrugged it off and decided that something interesting must be happening in the book she was reading.

Seeing as she was now in the clear, Peridot opened up the text from Amethyst and reread it, the words searing into her brain as she stared at them. She bit her lip as she tried to figure out how to respond and ended up sending a simple: _What the_ _heck_ _am I supposed to do?_

The response came in a matter of seconds. _Talk to her! You've been giving her puppy dog eyes for months now! I'm honestly surprised you haven't exploded yet._

Peridot scoffed and rolled her eyes at her phone as she typed her next text. _Oh yeah? And what would I even say? You've known me long enough by now to know that I'm a complete clod when it comes to talking to people... especially her._

Peridot pressed send and put her phone face-down on her desk. She groaned and leaned back, throwing her hands over her face in defeat. A quick glance at the clock showed that she still had thirty-five minutes until the final bell rang.

She heard a ding and turned her phone back over, revealing a new text from Amethyst. _Hmm let's see... what's something that people usually say when they want to talk to someone..? Oh! I know! HI C'mon P, you're smart. Figure it out._

She closed her eyes and decided to forget about the conversation for the moment, it was useless anyway. Instead, she contemplated how she should spend the rest of her time, silently tapping the beat of a random song she had heard on the radio that morning on the desk with her fingers. It wasn't anything fancy but the song had been pretty catchy, something about potholes and cursing the government, maybe? She couldn't remember.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps on the hard time floor. She kept her eyes closed, positive that the person was probably just going to join the group behind her that had spent the period arguing over which new Drake song was better. Peridot had drowned them out the second things had started to get heated.

The footsteps, however, didn't keep going. They stopped right in front of Peridot's desk and didn't seem to be in a rush to leave. The blonde still decided to ignore it, figuring that if she pretended to not notice their presence, whoever it was would eventually give up and leave her alone.

Her plan was ruined, though, when the person cleared their throat and gave a small, nervous laugh.

Peridot's eyes shot open and she sat up in her seat, almost falling over. She quickly regained her balance, feeling her face redden as she blinked up at the person who had come to stand in front of her, the blonde's breath catching in her throat.

"You've got a pretty good beat going there," Lapis said as she laughed again, looking down at Peridot's fingers. Peridot quickly stilled her hand, her face turning an even darker shade of red.

"Have you ever thought about playing an instrument?" Lapis looked up from Peridot's now-quiet hand and met the blonde's surprised gaze, her blue eyes bright.

Peridot froze as she felt her brain shut down. She could feel her mouth opening and closing and was sure she looked like a fish out of water. Mentally kicking herself for the third time that day, she willed herself to calm down and stop making a fool of herself.

Lapis stood patiently in front of her desk, her face calm, though her eyes danced with mischief... and something else. Peridot couldn't focus long enough to put a finger on it.

"Umm..." Peridot gulped and flicked her eyes to the clock, hoping that there was a chance the bell might ring soon enough to save her. She cursed silently when she realized that she wasn't going to get an easy way out of this one.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to meet Lapis' gaze again. Big mistake. As soon as those blue eyes met hers, Peridot shut down. Before the blonde could stop herself, she blurted out the first thing that popped into her head.

"Hi?"

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An-nyŏng-ha-se-yo - "Hi/Hello" in Korean.


End file.
